Love
by Queen.Violet
Summary: Eh, not sure what I'm doing with the genres. XP Johnny McGregor absolutely hated Valentine's Day...as you can probably guess, Enrique Giancarlo was the exact opposite. Number two in the hundred themes challenge.


I feel very accomplished...wanna know why? I wrote this early. That's write, me, the procrastinator to end all procrastinators, wrote a story early. How early? Try about three months early. Whew, that's unheard of for me! The reason for this earliness was because I was sick and unable to go to a concert, and this idea was in my head...so I just wrote it...all in one day, too. Something else unheard of for me.

I put this up two days early, because I don't think I'll be able to do it on actual Valentine's Day. XP

Basically, this is my idea of a Valentine's Day fic. Without romance—which isn't actually very surprising if you know how often I write romance...and that would be never. XD It's also number two in the one hundred themes challenge. I'm not sure it really follows the _theme _of love, but there isn't much I can do about that. I'm no good with the mushy stuff.

All of the one hundred themes can be found on my profile.

Disclaimer: I do not, nor will I ever, own Beyblade. If, by some chance, I ever do get my hands on it, I promise I'll share if you're nice.

Enjoy!!

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Johnny McGregor absolutely hated Valentine's Day. To him, the holiday seemed completely pointless. The whole idea was to show the people you cared about how much you loved them, which really should be done every day if you really care about them that much. But if people wanted to send each other chocolates and roses and mushy cards and all the rest of it, they had better leave him out of it—he just wasn't that type of person. And it didn't help matters that he'd never had anyone to spend the holiday with. He was always stuck sitting at home watching love-struck couples walk past with the idea that they would get married one day, which, quite frankly, wasn't likely.

As you can probably guess, Enrique Giancarlo was the exact opposite. In fact, Valentine's day was one of his favorite holidays (three guesses why) and he took a different girl (or girls, for that matter) out every year. He also loved getting presents—and of course he always got a lot of these. He also didn't mind giving presents, seeing as the girls were more likely to stick around if they were being spoiled to death.

Johnny didn't know who the 'lucky' girl was this year, nor did he really care. He paid as little attention to the blond as possible, as he wasn't actually fond of his teammate...although he made no attempt to hide the fact. The only thing good about Valentine's Day in Johnny's eyes was that he wouldn't have to deal with Enrique.

Currently, the Scot was sprawled on an armchair in the living room of the Boulanger's family mansion. The chair in question was way too comfortable and Johnny felt like he was being sucked in. Most of the furniture in the house was like that—some nights the redhead had been forced to sleep on the floor just because his bed was too comfortable.

Nonetheless, this chair was where he was prepared to stay all day long. He had plopped himself down a while ago with no intention of moving for a while. His only source of entertainment was the television, but there was nothing good on as usual.

There was no one else around. Enrique was, of course, out with a girl or two (or three), Oliver was at the restaurant to provide extra help when everyone decided to take that special someone out to eat, and Robert was in Germany—he wouldn't arrive in France until later that evening. Johnny didn't blame him. Who would want to be in Paris on Valentine's Day?

Johnny stretched and tried to sit up, which wasn't exactly easy in this particular chair. Eventually he settled for draping himself over the chair sideways—at least this way he had a way off if he needed it.

No sooner had he gotten himself as comfortable as was possible then he heard the barely audible sound of the door opening and then closing again. He figured whoever it was was trying not to be noticed. He found out just who didn't want to be noticed when he heard the sound of a pair of shoes, one after the other, hitting the wall and the floor as they were kicked off. There was only one person who took their shoes off that way.

The Scotsman swore quietly to himself. As if his day wasn't bad enough already. Now he had to add Enrique to the list of things that were getting on his last nerve today. Maybe if he was lucky, the blond wouldn't come this way. Luck—or whatever it was that controlled the way events played out—clearly wasn't on his side today.

Moments later, Enrique entered the living room and threw his overly expensive jacket onto the couch, then threw himself on it as well. The Italian heaved an overly dramatic sigh and stared at the ceiling.

"What are you doing here?" Johnny asked, eager to find out why his teammate was here so he could get rid of him as quickly as possible.

"Hello to you, too, Johnny," Enrique answered, glancing at the redhead.

Johnny just stretched again and folded his arms behind his head. "You didn't answer my question."

"This is my best friend's house—I like to think I'm allowed to come here without an explanation," the blond explained, smirking when the other teen glared at him. "Don't be such a grouch, Johnny-boy. It's Valentine's Day—couldn't you at least manage to be a little nicer to me?"

"Not to you, no," Johnny retaliated. "Shouldn't you still be off making out with your girlfriends and buying them everything in sight?"

Enrique grimaced. "Well...."

The Scotsman couldn't resist a laugh. "They finally ditched you didn't they?"

"Not exactly. There was only one and she stood me up to be with her other boyfriend...and what do you mean 'finally'?" he inquired as he sat up to shoot his own glare at the redhead.

"Nothing at all, Enrique-poo, nothing at all," Johnny said, looking slightly amused at his teammate's current predicament. "Why didn't you just go pick up some other random chick like you normally do?"

Enrique rotated until he was sitting on the couch the normal way. "Because this girl was--"

"I swear to God, Giancarlo, if you say special I'll shove your head through the TV," the Scot threatened, not in the mood for all that mushy crap.

"But she was!" the Italian insisted.

"Uh-huh." Johnny refused to buy it. "Just like the other one hundred and fifty-four were."

"What?" The blond looked genuinely confused.

"Nothing," the Scotsman assured his teammate. "So you don't have any other plans for the holiday that was practically made for you?"

Enrique shook his head sadly. "No, the ones with Rebecca were the only ones I made."

"You must've had it bad," Johnny observed. The blond almost always had plans with at least two girls on Valentine's Day.

The Italian nodded, then stared intently at the floor. "I thought she might actually have liked me for me—not for my money or looks like the other girls."

The redhead let out a slight laugh. "What looks?" he asked, disappointed when he received no reply. Enrique wasn't even good for an argument! Johnny hadn't ever seen his teammate like this—and he had to admit that it was more than slightly awkward. He didn't know what to say. His mother might be a psychiatrist, but when it came to dealing with people and their feelings, Johnny wanted no part of it.

Several moments of a very awkward silence followed until the Italian spoke up.

"Johnny," he started, using a tone of voice that suggested he was about to ask a question to which the answer was very important to him. "Do you think I'll ever be in—that is to say...will I ever find _true_ love?"

If Johnny had been eating or drinking he would've choked. As it was, he already had to remind himself to keep breathing. Needless to say he was surprised and caught way off guard by the question.

"Well you certainly do your fair share of looking," the Scotsman said after a while. He had used a more friendly and joking tone than he would've liked...he didn't want the other teen to think they were the best of friends now.

Enrique managed a weak smile at the redhead's comment. "I do don't I?" There was no hint of pride in the statement. In fact, the way he said it made it sound like the blond suddenly found himself very pathetic.

"Don't you think you should be talking to Oliver about this?" Johnny wasn't too keen on staying in this conversation much longer if he could help it. To be honest, it was way out of his comfort zone. "This sounds more like best friend talk than worst enemy talk to me...."

"I've already bothered Oliver enough with this stuff," Enrique said. "And I was thinking that maybe if I heard it from someone else...I would believe it more."

Johnny could tell by the way the blond was wringing his hands and hesitating that this conversation was just as weird for Enrique as it was for him. It must have been really important to him if he was willing to keep going despite his nerves. He felt sorry for the Italian—which was another thing he wasn't exactly used to.

"Look, Enrique, I'm not the kind of person that likes to talk about feelings, but if my opinion's that important to you..." he trailed off when his teammate looked into his plum eyes with bright blue ones. There was a surprising amount of emotion in those eyes—it was almost more than the redhead could bear. He blinked several times before looking away and focusing on the ceiling instead. "Then I'll tell you what I think," he continued at last, his voice unintentionally more gentle than usual.

He took a deep breath and went on. "I think you will find love one day, Enrique, and when you do, it will be stronger than most peoples'." Johnny risked a glance at his teammate, and saw that the other teen was smiling at him. He smirked in return.

"Thanks," the blond muttered.

"You're not welcome."

For some reason, Enrique's smile grew at this.

"Stop smiling like that," Johnny said, regaining his normal, sarcastic tone of voice. "You look even more like an idiot than usual."

"At least I look better than you do," the Italian retaliated. "Like a real person."

"Shut up and stop trying so hard to be clever, Giancarlo," Johnny shot back.

"Some of us don't have to try, Johnny-boy." Enrique smirked and flopped back down on the couch.

"It's a shame you could never be one of us."

"Shut up, Johnny."

"Ooh, nice comeback. I'm going to have to use that one sometime." The Scot was glad the conversation had moved into the more comfortable and familiar grounds of an argument.

"Like you could've come up with a better one," Enrique challenged.

"Actually, us clever people are experts at coming up with clever comebacks—if you haven't already noticed."

The two of them spent the rest of the day verbally abusing each other. Neither showed any sign that they had had a not only civil conversation, but a deep one, when Robert arrived and Oliver came home.

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Aw, wasn't that sweet? Yeah, okay...so that's my version of a V-day fic. I personally share the same view of the holiday as Johnny. XD

I know it isn't the best, (like everything else I write) but hopefully you enjoyed it. I liked it better the second time around myself. I also apologize for any errors...I know there must be some...there always are. XD

Review if you please? I would greatly appreciate it. :D


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